Page 11 of Power of Five
7
Leralynn
Fight or run? My breath comes fast, the pain in my shoulder slowing to a distant, dull roar as I gather my legs under me. The gurgling growls are moving closer and I still don’t know whether I’m better off trying to outrun it—them—or fight. Neither. I can do neither. Clean-picked bones. Mauled bodies. That is what’s found of humans who try to cross Mystwood.
The branches shift, and despite the futility of it, my good hand tightens around a rock just as three... creatures step out around me.
I scream, the sound piercing Mystwood.
The things might charitably be called a mix of hog and human. They stand on hind legs, their front limbs long enough to run on all fours. The knees bend back like an animal’s, and their faces... red vertical slits for eyes, a snout of a nose, a protruding lower jaw with fangs that stick out for apparent lack of room inside the maw. Their lips—if the flaps of skin covering their mouths can be called that—fail at blocking yellow saliva from dripping onto their fur-covered torsos.
The worst, though, is the delight flashing in those glowing eyes, which widen in concert with the increasing flow of saliva. They are not just going to kill me—they are going to savor every moment of it.
Fightandrun. Launching the stone in my hand into the closest beast’s snout, I scramble to my feet and sprint down the trail. One step. Two. Before my third stride lands, a massive weight crashes into me from behind. I fall onto my stomach, hot slime dripping onto the back of my neck and the stench of rotten meat so thick that I gag.
Claws dig deep into my flesh, the pain a hot flame. This is how I die, then. At the claws and jaws of a nightmare. I brace for the killing blow just as another roar echoes through the trees, this one familiar and furious.
Shade sprints toward us, a blur of gray fur and shining yellow eyes. Without slowing, the wolf lowers to the ground, his teeth snapping as he launches his body at the thing atop me. My breath stills. With the next beat of my heart, the weight on my back disappears, the rot replaced by a wolf’s earthy scent. I struggle up, holding my arm close, and find Shade atop the hog beast that held me down moments ago. Blood the color of rust spills from the hog beast’s mauled neck onto the forest floor, Shade’s muzzle dripping with more of the viscous substance.
The other two hog beasts snarl their displeasure, circling Shade and me. They are twice the wolf’s size and salivating again, unconcerned with the fate of their companion. One of the two takes a step forward, and Shade is between it and me in a moment. The wolf’s sides heave, whether from the sprint here or the fight he’s already had. Without the element of surprise, he cannot fight off both hog beasts at once.
I put my good hand on Shade’s back. “Run, wolf. I can’t run, but you can. Let’s not have two deaths where there need be only one.” I bite my lip and shove Shade away. “Go, wolf! Run, damn you.”
My shoving fails to dislodge Shade but sends lightning up my injured shoulder. My escaped whimper might as well be a dinner bell. Both hog beasts grin and step forward, one swiping at Shade while the other stalks toward me. I’m about to scream at Shade again when the ground shakes, the very earth trembling.
I should be afraid as I fall onto my backside, but instead something inside me sighs in recognition. The earth shakes again, and this time the magic of it echoes through my bones. Without knowing how, I know who’s causing this.River.
The hog beasts hesitate, their maws swiveling between the morsel that is me and whatever their preternatural senses are telling them is coming. And what’s coming, I discover a heartbeat later, is three deadly fae males riding bareback at a full gallop.
Tye’s hair streaks behind him, Coal’s a tight bun atop his head. The latter dismounts with the horse still running, lands deftly on his feet, and steps between me and the hogs. River gallops around me, dirt from his horse’s hooves spraying my face as he continues farther down the path, where more wet growls are now sounding. Tye, damn him, doesn’t bother swerving and jumps his horse clear over my head before disappearing after River.
Coal’s sword flashes, slicing the closest beast from crotch to neck in a single swipe before squaring off against the other.
Over my heart’s pounding, I try to slither back from the melee. With my life no longer in immediate peril, my body feels its injuries again and I whimper as my arm accidentally tries and fails to support my weight.
Shade jumps at the quiet sound and lopes toward me. The male’s yellow eyes grip my gaze so tightly that I don’t register anything odd until a heartbeat later, when I finally realize that while a wolf leapt into the air, it was a fae male who landed in a crouch beside me. Shining, shaggy black hair cascades down to his collarbone, where a gray sleeveless shirt hangs open to show a muscled chest narrowing into a taut abdomen.
A pair of familiar yellow eyes peers into my soul. “You are hurt,” Shade says, his golden skin and broad shoulders filling the whole of my world.
